Stephen Haggard

A member of the Haggard family, he was born on 21 March 1911 in Guatemala City, Guatemala, to Sir Godfrey Digby Napier Haggard, a British diplomat, and his wife Georgianna Ruel Haggard.^[1] He was the great-nephew of author H. Rider Haggard, and the brother of photographer and author Virginia Haggard, the companion of the painter Marc Chagall.^[2] Haggard was educated at Haileybury College, where he became close to the artist-schoolmaster Wilfrid Blunt.^[3]

After an initial foray into journalism, and determined to obtain some overseas experience,^[4] Haggard moved to Munich, where he studied for stage at the Munich State Theatres under Frau Magda Lena.^[4] He made his stage debut at the Schauspielhaus in October 1930 in the play Das kluge Kind directed by Max Reinhardt. He later appeared as Hamlet at the same theatre.^[1][4]

Upon Haggard's return to the United Kingdom in 1931, his career path was initially discouraging: he received only small parts in various London plays and worked in repertory in Worthing.^[1] He undertook further study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art^[4] and subsequently received good notices when he played Silvius in Shakespeare's As You Like It in London in 1933.^[4] He was noticed by the playwright Clemence Dane and made his first appearance in New York in 1934 as the poet Thomas Chatterton in her play Come of Age.^[1][4] Returning to Britain, he had successful roles in a number of plays, including Flowers of the Forest, a production of Mazo de la Roche's Whiteoaks, and he appeared as Konstantin in Chekhov's The Seagull,^[4][5] and was hailed as one of the most promising and handsome classical actors of the era.^[6]

Haggard married Morna Gillespie in September 1935, and they had three children, of whom one died young,^[1][7][8] and another is the director Piers Haggard.^[1][9] His granddaughter is actor Daisy Haggard.^[10]

In 1938, Haggard returned to New York to reprise his role as Finch in Whiteoaks, which he also directed.^[1][4] His novel Nya was published in the same year.^[1] He appeared as Mozart in the film Whom the Gods Love (1936). The film was not a success, in part because Haggard was considered to be inexperienced, and was unknown. He also appeared in Alfred Hitchcock's film Jamaica Inn (1939)^[1][11] and subsequently appeared as Lord Nelson in the Carol Reed film The Young Mr. Pitt (1942).^[12]

At the outbreak of the Second World War Haggard joined the British Army, serving as a captain in the Intelligence Corps.^[1] His wife and two sons went to the United States in 1940, where his father was consul-general in New York. Shortly after their departure, he wrote his sons a letter, which was published in the Atlantic Monthly later that year as "I'll Go to Bed at Noon: A Soldier's Letter to His Sons."^[13] Haggard was posted to the Middle East and worked for the Department of Political Warfare.^[5][6] There he met the author Olivia Manning and her husband, the broadcaster R. D. Smith. The latter recruited Haggard to play starring roles in his productions of Henry V and Hamlet on local radio in Jerusalem.^[5] Manning based the character Aidan Sheridan in her Fortunes of War novel sequence on Haggard.^[6][14]

While in the Middle East, Haggard fell in love with a beautiful Egyptian married woman whose husband worked in Palestine. Haggard was overworked and felt that the war had destroyed his acting career. He was on the edge of a nervous breakdown when after some months the woman decided to end the relationship. Haggard shot himself on a train between Cairo and Palestine on 25 February 1943 at the age of 31.^[6][14]

The manner of Haggard's death was hushed up and is not mentioned in the biography of Haggard written by Christopher Hassall and published in 1948.^[14] Haggard is buried in Heliopolis War Cemetery, in Cairo, Egypt.^[15]

• Haggard, S. (1938). Nya. London: Faber and Faber Limited
• Haggard, S. (1944). I’ll Go to Bed at Noon: A Soldier’s Letter to His Sons. London, Faber and Faber
• Haggard, S. (1945). The Unpublished Poems of Stephen Haggard. Salamander Press
• Athene Seyler with Stephen Haggard (1946). The Craft of Comedy. New York : Theatre Arts